Information GMBA_2016_Mountain_Rasters_V1.1 (release 2)
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May 2017 (release 2)

This document describes the files contained in the zip folder "GMBA_2016_Mountain_Rasters_V1.1.zip". The folder contains the original raster layers provided by GMBA to accompany the Koerner (2011) paper.

File description:

FILE 1. GMBA_2016_Ruggedness_WorldClim_2.5m_V.1.1.tif: the ruggedness layer (calculated on the basis of the 30” WorldClim “Altitude” raster, later generalized to 2.5’ resolution as explained in Koerner 2011)

FILE 2. GMBA_2016_Bioclimatic_Belts_WorldClim_2.5m_V1.1.tif: the Bioclimatic Belt layer calculated on the basis of the 2.5’ climatic data layers from WorldClim.
Vector point layers (in shape or .txt format) containing information on both ruggedness and bioclimatic belts for each grid cell are available upon request (gmba@ips.unibe.ch).  


Technical notes: 
1. Version V1.1  
2. Grid cell size: 0.04166666 decimal degrees (i.e. 2.5 Arc minute or 2 minutes 30 seconds), resampled from the original 30 arc second grid    
3. Changes compared to V1.0: removal of mistakes in the Tvzcode Labels below and a new .tif files for the climatic belts and the mountain definition. Only the labeling changed; the raw data did not change.


The values in "GMBA_2016_Bioclimatic_Belts_WorldClim_2.5m_V1.1.tif" represent the following Thermic Vegetation Zones (TVZ):
-9: not available
1: nival (growing season < 10 days; season mean temperature < 3.5 degrees C)
2: upper alpine zone (growing season between 10 and 54 days; season mean temperature < 3.5 degrees C)
3: lower alpine zone (growing season < 94 days or season mean temperature < 6.4 degrees C)
4: upper montane zone (growing season >= 94 days and season mean temperature between 6.4 and 10.0 degrees C)
5: lower montane zone (growing season >= 94 days and season mean temperature between 10.0 and 15.0 degrees C)
6: warm zone with possible freezing (growing season >= 94 days and season mean temperature > 15.0 degrees C)
7: zone with perpetual warm conditions, no freezing (growing season >= 94 days and season mean temperature > 15.0 degrees C)

How to cite:
When using the GMBA ruggedness data, please cite:  
1. Publication: Körner C, Paulsen J, Spehn E (2011) A definition of mountains and their bioclimatic belts for global comparisons of biodiversity data. Alpine Botany 121(2): 73-78 DOI:10.1007/s00035-011-0094-4. 
2. Data: DOI:10.7892/boris.83486